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AFRICAN GRASS FIRES AND THEIR^ m + £V 



EFFECTS. N& V >^ 



MANY parts of the interior of tropical Africa consist 

 of wide grassy plains, occasionally varied by 

 scattered trees, but usually very bare and monotonous in 

 appearance. In the rainy season these steppes are green 

 with vigorously growing grass, and patrolled by hundreds 

 of antelopes and other kinds of game ; a few months after- 

 wards when the rains are over, they are covered by 

 blackened ashes and charcoal, and not a living creature will 

 be visible except perhaps a few birds or a very occasional 

 ground-rat. 



These fires are usually due to the natives, who find 

 that the bush can be most easily cleared by their assistance, 

 though they are often lighted to satisfy the childish delight 

 in a big blaze which is characteristic of the Suahili porter. 



Their effects are most interesting, both economically 

 and also in the way in which they entirely change the 

 aspect of the vegetation. 



It is, of course, immediately obvious that all the valu- 

 able feeding material of many square miles of luxuriant 

 grass is by these fires entirely wasted ; but, besides this, 

 the soil is never permitted to grow rich through the 

 accumulation of leaf-mould and stems, and in fact the land 

 is every year brought back into exactly the same condition. 

 No true turf is formed, and the soil remains more like the 

 subsoil in cultivated countries and never becomes in the 

 least improved. 



The effect on the vegetation is very curious. The 

 season of flowering for many trees and herbaceous 

 plants is completely altered. A large number of low- 

 growing herbaceous plants possess woody root-stocks or 

 some sort of underground store of nourishment. With the 

 very first shower of the rainy season, these stores send up 

 flowering stems entirely without leaves, and the bare and 

 blackened earth is studded with the bright purple flowers of 



